Last ditch efforts came from both sides today. Republican leaders made it clear that they would do everything in their power to block the Health Care Reform Bill from passing. However, Obama stepped it up as well - appealing to as many Democrats as he could on why this momentus legislation is desperately needed for this country, asking them to "answer the call of history".
With a sole Republican vote in Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana and 39 Democrats voting against it, the Bill passed with a narrow margin of 220-215.
The bill essentials:
- Requires that most Americans carry insurance and provides assistance (subsidies) to those who cannot afford it.
- Large companies would be required to provide coverage for their employees and be faced with penalties if they don't comply.
- No denials based on pre-existing conditions.
- Bars insurers from imposing lifetime limits on coverage.
- Cannot charge higher premiums based on medical history and gender.
- Insurance industry could lose it's anti-trust exemptions from price gouging, bid-rigging and market allocation.
- The government will sell health insurance for direct competition with current insurers. (public option)
- The bill expands Medicaid.
Now, on to the Senate.
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Comments
Any improvement in terms of getting more U.S. citizens health care is welcome. This really is a historic day. I'm quite sure this will not be then end of it, but it is a REAL START!
I simply don't have the faith in government that many others seem to have. In the case of government, it's a case of whether ot not you're fucked with a rubber or not. Either way, you walk away fucked.
Bob - I agree. It's not that i have so much "faith" in the government - hope maybe? We have to start somewhere and this has been a long time coming.
For a multitude of reasons the only workable solution is a single payer universal plan. Any other will simply invite a level of corruption and abuse that will make your hair curl.
Think people are having a tough time now scraping by with part time jobs or under-employment? Just wait until they are required to pay for health insurance that they can't afford. Meanwhile joe blow ceo goldman will get his, with before tax dollars, which he has plenty of (before and after), while mr and mrs joe blow will not have money to eat healthy food which will make them sick.
This bill sucks. I'd rather have nothing.
BBE.... who peed in your cornflakes?
I'm so tired of seeing people be hurt.
It is yet another bailout for wealthy corporations.
It is graft and corruption presented as a sop for the masses who have not read the bill and do not understand the mandate portions.
Essentially this highly touted "reform" only allows 11 million people into a limited government-run health insurance option and includes a mandate for Americans to buy private policies. The mandate means billions more in profit for insurance corporations.
Plus at the last moment, the Catholic cult stripped millions of women whose insurance had family planning coverage of that care today with the Stupak amendment. Pelosi allowed the Stupak amendment after removing both Kucinich and Weiner's single payer amendments. I would think you progressive women would have noticed that detail.
Don't be so easily fooled.
Just because a bill is called something let's say like the Patriot Act, that doesn't mean the bill is Patriotic in the least. Same with this so called "reform" bill.
Here is the mandate: SEC. 59B. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE. TAX IMPOSED. Any individual who does not meet the requirements of at any time during the taxable year, there is imposed a tax equal to 2.5 % of the excess of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income for the taxable year.
Wait for the wow the "reform" bill passed euphoria to wear off and you will see the truth. You have a choice of buying an over priced policy of being fined or "taxed" 2.5 percent of your income.
We have been sold out yet again.
BBE - I do know about the abortion issue and I'm not happy about it. It seems they want to push it through just to be the ones who did it.
So, only 11 million Americans could gain access through the government? That, I was not aware of. I assumed with making it mandatory, those that still couldn't afford a policy would fall under the subsidies.
There's no chance in hell that insurers will come down on their premiums due to the "competition" of the government?
A whole new class of criminal.
On the bright side, once they're imprisoned, they'll receive health care.
Thanks for not making me feel like a dumbass BBE.
That is an indicator in and of itself.
There will be more analysis coming this week and the Senate has another chance at making it even worse. Although there are rumors Sanders may be putting single payer for states back in.
It is not over yet.
I really miss the hard work and the evening meals with friends. The social interractions with the people you worked your ass off with the day before. I miss that life and envy you and your hubby.
There's something about ranching that gets into your soul. It transforms you into a person you've never seen before. How cool it is, how wonderful the respite it all brings about.
Cowboys/girls forever!
Mike - I think any step is one in the right direction. We've been fighting for this for, what, 60 years. It's about time. If anything, at least the insurance industry will have to adhere to some regulations. Maybe those that are unable to purchase the public option will have a better chance at something affordable from the big insurers. Who knows though.
Tom & Steve - Thanks for dropping by guys. I know a lot of care providers are definitely for reform, but you don't see it in the media too often. It's comforting to see it here, Steve.
Is there still a shot of the Senate coming up with a single-payer plan?
It just doesn't make sense to me why we wouldn't just expand a system that is already in place. Instead we are going to create an entirely new facet of the government. Bizarre.
I have been saying and posting for months that the proposed reform -- even with a public option -- is nothing but more corporate welfare. I pray I am wrong about this -- but logic all too clearly shouts otherwise.
Under this "reform", tens of millions of highly-profitable low-risk citizens will be forced under penalty of fine and imprisonment into the clutches of corporate criminals who run the gigantic insurance scams called Wellpoint, United Healtcare, et al.
Meanwhile, the uninsurable will end up in a the public insurance pool, which will soon be bankrupt because it will be operating with only high-risk members.
When someone promised change I could believe in, I took that to mean at least fighting the good fight for a single-payer system as used by every other industrialized social democracy in the world. Instead, most politicians engaged in a race to the bottom of the corporate barrel.
Citizens of this country have been abused by insurers and legislators for far too long. In the past, I've suggested that if everyone stopped paying premiums to insurance companies, something useful would be done.
Now it appears, citizens are going to also have to risk prison by refusing to pay fines for not bending over to be rear-ended by insurers. Now The only recourse left is civil disobedience.
Is this a great country or what?
I don't know if I'm all for something being done rather than nothing because my judgment is clouded. It makes me sick that someone else gets to make the decisions in my life for me. I'm 35, we'd really like to start a family, yet can't. And don't get me started on the risks of Paul's job. He got thrown off a horse just the other day. It's a scary place to be in.
AND IT DOES NOT LEGALIZE MARIJUANA. Which despite Obama's stupid, uninformed and out to lunch comments on the subject at the town hall meeting, is currently being tested by the FDA to treat very hard to treat neurological conditions, as is Marinol, the fake and more expensive version.
AND IT WORKS. I should know. I have TBI plus another rare neurological condition. I take Marinol right now, which works, but its' far more expensive and doesn't work as well. So my pharma bill thanks to MY exclusion from the workforce, COSTS YOU SIX GRAND A MONTH. And I still can't get an MRI. Or find a neurologist who will take Medicaid. This bill doesn't fix that problem either.
So this is not a victory folks. It's called pulliing the wool over your eyes. And a FUCK YOU to the American people who are going to pay more for less, when salaries are declining, the unemployment rate is actually about forty percent, and the bill, as I pointed out in another post, is actually ILLEGAL under both disabilities law and the International Treaty for Human Rights for People with Disability Rights, in that it does NOT provide equal access to the same quality of care for those with disabilities, who are twenty percent of the population of this country, ninety percent who are deliberately excluded from the workforce because of rampant discrimination, live in poverty and cannot get equal access as is MANDATED EVEN UNDER CURRENT DOMESTIC DISABILITY LAW.
THIS IS COMPLETE AND UTTER BS.
And if you think otherwise you are delusional.
STOP YELLING AT EVERYONE! Italics are your friend. The code is: [i]whatever[/i] Just use greater than/less than symbols instead of the brackets. Also, you might want to consider periods as well as that's the longest run-on sentence I've ever seen.
I'm delusional? Yet, you are so angry that the legalization of marijuana wasn't in this bill? I totally think it should be legal, but there was no way that it would've been considered here. If the FDA is doing testing, that's great news. I hope the results show that it can do amazing things so they have no reason not to legalize it.
So tell me, does this bill specifically exclude people with disabilities? Can you provide any links to portions of the bill you are speaking of?
Of course she can't. Most nay-sayers are simply making numbers up as they go. We have had OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) up here in Ontario for decades and it works just great. Yes, we pay a lot more taxes up here and that's what pays for it. And yes there are long lines to get things like MRIs. But all in all it works very well. There's very little of the crap that the "No" side loves to talk about, and I get no bills for anything when I break an arm break dancing, or break my neck show boarding. Even when I'm tanning my gorgeous body in the Caribbean and get an allergic reaction to the sun all my bills down there are covered.
This is a good thing. Trust me. I'm a used car salesman. Ok... how 'bout a lawyer? Would you believe a Boy Scout Leader?
I think there has been so much mis information that it will take a while before people understand what is going on.
By the way, Al Franken is big on the Swiss system.
There is a lot to like in the new bill. People will get subsidies for health insurance from a max of 2% of adjusted gross income for people at 130% of poverty level to 9% of agi for people @ 400% of poverty level.
Plus Health Insurers are currently regulated by the States, currently. The market reforms built into the bill are significant, despite what people say.
The least rational part of the current system has been addressed. That is the fact that people that don't have employee group insurance can and are priced out of the individual insured market. The poor are covered by medicaid. So, we are systematically forcing a lot of middle class people into either assuming the financial risk of serious illness, and if they lose, pushing them into poverty where they will qualify for medicaid.
Adding 30 million people to some plausible form of health care is a significant improvement.
And with health care eating up 17% of GDP, the money has to come from somewhere. It's really no different than a progressive tax (from 2% to 9%) for those without coverage to get coverage, with the balance being subsidized by other taxpayers.
The real issue is getting the total cost rationalized over the next 10-15 years so that we are competitive in world markets. Most of the world does quite nicely on 10% of GDP. However to get it passed, no one was forced to give up anything. This is the year to give. Next year, we will start squeezing. And everyone will get nicked. Drug companies. Hospitals. Labs. Individuals who want expensive, unproven stuff. Doctors.
At any rate I should be able to get health insurance now and that's a relief.
What happened with pre-existing conditions? Under the current law, even if I get heatlh insurance tomorrow any situation related to my MS probably will not be covered for three years. I will check in the morning. My nephew texted me a few minutes ago. He is super, super happy about this.
With all the situations I have had over the past few years with doctors and insurance, my greater concern is actually with communication within the health system -- particularly between healthcare providers and insurers. At the moment it is totally horrible.
And I have actually found that in many cases, hospitals and drug companys will pick up big bills. I know that isn't the case with every situation but it has been the case in many instances with me. I go to a research hospital where there are lots of referrals and free things.
But really -- no matter who is paying the bills -- government or private companies -- patients so very much deserve better communication about what they getting ,what their options are, what the consequences are, etc...
Duh.
Anyway, my points still largely stand. I liked this discussion better than the more current ones.